Last Week in the MTC, First Week in the Field

Hello Everyone!

The Last Week in the MTC was pretty uneventful. We packed way too late on Sunday night and headed out Monday morning. I miss my MTC district soooo much!! 

Sister Marissa Lundeen and Sister Marissa Hadden

I am officially a Californian. We arrived Monday afternoon. It's awesome here! It rained the first 4 days (I'm so glad I bought rain boots!) and was pretty chilly for a while but today it's sunny and warm. We had a crazy busy week! We met our companions and found out our areas on Tuesday! My companion's name is Sister Lundeen, She is from Texas and has been out for 13 months. She has buckets of energy and is always positive. HER NAME IS ALSO MARISSA. She and I have a ton in common. We are serving in the Westlake YSA Ward which is near Thousand Oaks. We are right in the area where the fires were. The hillsides are black, but with all the rain, some green is starting to crop up here and there! The YSA ward stretches over like 4 family wards so we drive a ton to get to everyone (extra miles) yay. 

Our friend Anthony was baptized on Saturday!!!!! (We call investigators Friends). Anthony is the sweetest guy. Another sister and I sang  a song called "My Kindness Shall Not Depart From Thee" at his baptism. So many people came! Sister Lundeen has been teaching Anthony for two transfers. He is going to get the priesthood this week and a temple recommend and we are going to go with him to do Baptisms in the LA temple on Saturday. I'm so excited to help him find his family. He is planning to take his grandparents' names and hopefully we can find some more ancestors through Family Search. 

We are teaching 5 other friends right now, and we have 3 other people who are super interested whom we have lessons with this week. I'm super busy, but it's good to stay busy. Whenever we have a spare minute we go tracting, and I don't like tracting. We've already had so many good experiences tracting, but then there's always those who aren't so kind. 

I get to call home now so that's cool! It's going to be weird for all the other missionaries who haven't talked to family in months, whereas I spoke with my parents on Monday of last week in the airport. I'm so excited to be able to call and talk to them though. 

Being a missionary is... Exhausting, Hard, but also so rewarding. I have already learned so much from everyone I've met and from pushing myself. Seeing Anthony's face at his baptism is what is keeping me going. I just want that for everyone.  

Lots of love, 

Sister Hadden!